


Another trial

by Gepo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 10:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7099915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gepo/pseuds/Gepo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On my endless mission to bring more reality into popular literature I asked myself why the Wizarding Trials work how they do. If you have an ultimate truth serum, why not make it mandatory at every important trial (murder, crime against State etc.)? All those trials described in HP were off, most were just badmouthing, judges fighting and always looking for the most obvious solution instead of asking for truth. In light of that, how was Draco let go? He was a legal adult, so I would have expected him to go to Askaban for life for being a Death Eater (just look at what happened with everyone else before). But he is still rich and has a family in the epilog. How did that happen?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another trial

“Guilty.“

The hammer fell and signed another faith.

Harry let out a sigh. Bloody hell … were they all mad? Why? What had she done? Was being married to a criminal now a crime? Did she even have a Dark Mark? Harry closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair.

This was madness. All of it.

Still, he just watched as Narzissa Malfoy was led out of the courtroom. He just watched. Like he always did. Really, what else could he do? He did not write the law. It was not his decision who was guilty or not. Who was he to think he knew more than fifty capable wizards and witches.

Fifty wizards and witches who had nearly condemned him for defending himself against a Dementor.

Harry shook his head. They had been influenced by Umbridge.

And what does it say about them if fifty most honorable judges can be swayed by one person?

No. They had just assembled on her call. They had let him go free.

Because of Dumbledore. Again swayed by one person.

Harry shook his head to banish the voice which eerily sounded like his own. He was not to question this system. He had no right.

Why not? How often had this system wronged him? And what had the system done to save itself while he battled Voldemort?

“Enough” he whispered. Some people sitting around him turned their head but looked away again after they recognized him as the speaker. And what kind of stupid reason was that? He stood up and walked down the aisle to take a seat a bit more off to have some privacy. His thoughts gave him the strange urge to be alone.

“Next up is the trial of The Great Wizarding Realm of Great Britain against Draco Malfoy.”

Harry nearly rolled his eyes. This was to be the twenty-third Death Eater trial and they still had to use pompous titles like that? Was that really formal procedure? Or just them trying to seem more important than they were? And why was this sarcastic voice sounding exactly like his own?

“The court will reassemble tomorrow at eight AM. We wish you a pleasant evening” Accompanied by another fall of the hammer.

Harry had begun to hate the sound. The finality of it. Another person labeled bad – bamm. And now have a nice night and come back to watch another public slaughter tomorrow – bamm. Harry closed his eyes and massaged his temples. Just why did he come here every day? He could not change a thing, so what was he doing here? Was he seeking vengeance? Salvation? Or rather forgiveness?

“How about nothing at all?” he asked himself.

He shook his head and stood up with a sigh. Enough. He would go home, prepare for his friends' visit this evening, read a bit and have a good night's sleep. The world would look better tomorrow. It really would.

He told himself so every evening.

 

“Before us stands the accused Draco Malfoy. His list of crimes goes as follows: Treason against the Great Wizarding Realm of Great Britain, attempted murder, physical and psychological torture and casting of the Cruciatus Curse.”

Harry closed his arms around himself. Not in defense. Just … something. Maybe a bit of defense. That Cruciatus curse had been aimed at him after all. Not that it ever hit him or was even cast, seeing as he had cut Malfoy open with a Dark curse before he could even finish the incantation.

“What do you plead?”

In that moment Harry looked at Malfoy for the first time that morning. Not exactly perfectly combed blond hair, no visible signs of abuse, no signs of malnourishment … except for the tremble. A slight tremble of Malfoys right hand. His face was set in hard lines. He stared at the main judge with undisguised hate.

Great idea, Malfoy … well, the git seemed to be afraid. Rightly so. They would judge him guilty whatever he said. Even his father's eloquence had not saved the man this time, so how should a terrified little ferret get out? He could just plead guilty and be done with it. It would save him a lot of humiliation.

“Not guilty” Malfoy held his head high. “And I demand to see my lawyer. It is my right.”

“Traitors against the Great Wizarding Realm of Great Britain do not have such a right. You are a prisoner of war and therefore only have a right to defend yourself. You may do so or plead guilty.”

Harry closed his eyes. Another great law. Who made that one … up?

“I will defend myself” Malfoy drew in his breath. “I am not guilty.”

The judge called up one of the Aurors to explain the accusal in detail. Hogwarts the castle magically saved every detail of what happened in it. In earlier trials Aurors had showed scenes from the final battle again and again. This time though the Auror showed scenes from sixth year.

Harry thought his stomach did flip-flops.

The scene in Myrtle's bathroom. Without tone except for Malfoy's Crucio. The scene in the Astronomy Tower. Malfoy disarming Dumbledore, showing his Dark Mark, the arrival of the Death Eaters and Malfoy explaining the Vanishing Cabinett. Ending the scene with Snape's Avada Kedavra, also in tone.

Harry bit his tongue. They had successfully muted the part where Malfoy explained that Voldemort held his mother prisoner. How unsurprising. He half-listened how the Auror spun a story of a devil who not only tried to torture the Great Harry Potter but also tried to kill Albus Dumbledore.

“Thank you, Auror” The judge turned to Malfoy. “Do you deny being the man in those recordings?”

“No, but-”

“Do you deny doing any of the things that were shown?”

“I don't, but I-”

“Do you have any evidence that you do not have a Dark Mark, that you have not tried to cast the Cruciatus curse on Harry Potter, that you have not brought other Death Eaters into Hogwarts or tried to kill the late Headmaster Albus Dumbledore?”

“You have to see that in context!” Malfoy surged forwards but was held with his chains in the chair.

Harry swallowed. Malfoy was right. They had to know the context. How could they judge him without even knowing why he did all that? Some of the trials had been unfair. The judge had given some people only one minute to defend themselves. Lucius Malfoy had effortlessly talked himself out of three crimes in that time but was found guilty of the other eight for which he had no time.

“The accused is unable to bring any evidence contrary to his charges. He is therefore denied time to defend himself.”

Bloody hell. Harry nearly jumped out of his seat. Was the judge mad?

“Do you wish to call any witnesses?”

Malfoy looked around himself. Searching with his eyes as if somehow someone would miraculously show up and save him. Harry remembered that look. He remembered those desperate eyes. Looking, searching for him in the midst of eternal fire. He swallowed again. Who was he to question the judge? But who was he to stand aside when someone was in need of help?

“I will speak as a witness.”

 

Harry looked around. Who said that? Why was everyone suddenly focusing on him? He looked down at himself. And why was he suddenly standing?

“Mister Potter?” The judge looked at him sharply.

He tried to swallow but could not. It dawned on him that he was the one who had spoken. Damn traitorous voice in his mind. Damn traitorous body making him stand up. Damn … oh, bugger it all!

“As Mister Malfoy was saying, you have to see those memories in context.” What the hell was he saying? What the hell was he going to say? He had absolutely no clue about the law. He didn't even know if he was allowed to speak like this!

“Mister Potter, the accused has already confirmed that he did everything shown in the recordings. There is no reason to pursuit the matter further. Context is irrelevant when it comes to law.”

“How could it?” What the bloody fucking hell was he doing? He went down the stairs to stand next to Malfoy, the way Dumbledore had stood next to him. And he told the voice in his head to shut up. “So it is treason against the Ministry to wear a Dark Mark made by a madman? Even against your own will? Then why am I not sitting here as a accused, seeing as I wear a Dark scar made by the same madman?” The was a sharp intake of breath from certainly more than one person.

Harry didn't care. Not at this point.

“If trying to cast a Dark curse is enough to be accused, why am I not sitting in this seat? In the same recording where you showed Malfoy trying to cast a Cruciatus, you see me casting a deadly Dark curse at him which would have killed him if he had not had emergency magical healing.”

“Mister Potter, nobody is accusing you-”

“But why? Why is no one accusing me if the context does not matter? You accuse him of trying to kill Albus Dumbledore. He has disarmed him, yes, but he did not even cast any harmful curse. At the same time, I am free while everyone knows that I have not only tried but succeeded in killing a man.”

There was complete silence. Not even the judge seemed to find any words.

So Harry continued: “I am not a lawyer and not a judge. I do not know our law. But this seems like injustice to me. Especially as Malfoy was not even a legal adult when all of this happened. I cast a Cruciatus curse right in the atrium of this Ministry and I was not even reprimanded.”

The judge looked at the other Wizengamot members questioningly before he turned to Harry again: “Mister Potter, doing those things in order to save someone is different from doing them to hurt.”

“Exactly. So why have you not asked Malfoy if he did those things to save someone?”

“Mister Potter, we have a protocol of questions to be asked-”

“Well, then I will hereby act as his witness. Draco Malfoy was forced to take the Dark Mark. He was to replace his father which had been put into prison that summer. He got the order to kill Albus Dumbledore. If he was unable to do so within a year, Voldemort threatened to kill his mother. He made two unsuccessful and quite obvious attempts on his life to inform Dumbledore of the danger” Not quite the truth but it would do. “Which by then Albus Dumbledore was already informed of. He persuaded Severus Snape to kill him. On one hand so that Malfoy did not have to carry the burden of having killed someone and on the other to get Snape up in Voldemort's rank because he was acting as a spy for the Order of the Phoenix.”

“He what?” Malfoy looked appalled.

“And bringing Death Eaters into Hogwarts?” The judge seemed to have found his equilibrium again.

“Under threat of his mother's life.”

“Mister Malfoy, is that true?” The judge turned to him.

“Yes … yes, it is” At least Malfoy had the decency to just go along.

“He still tried to cast the Cruciatus Curse” The judge's eyes rested on Harry once again. “Is there anything you can bring up in his defence?”

“Well … he tried to cast it. He did not finish” Think, Harry, think … anything? “He was underage. He … well, he kinda did it in self-defense. Seeing as I was flinging a life-threatening Dark curse at him.”

The judge was again looking at the other Wizengamot members. None raised a hand as they had sometimes done at other trials to ask a question themselves. After the a few moments the judge nodded and proclaimed: “We will now withdraw to find a consensus. Will everyone please leave the room?”

Harry turned on the spot. He did not wish to look Malfoy in the eye.

 

“We have decreed on a verdict.”

Harry had retaken his seat a bit off the conglomerate of people who came to watch the trials. By now he knew that three of them were reporters. They had haunted him for an interview the last half of an hour until the trials resumed.

“Mister Potter has given ample evidence that the accused was under certain pressure while he committed his crimes. Still we do not decree that mentioned pressure was sufficient enough to withdraw the charges. We therefore judge him guilty of all accuses.”

The judge raised the hammer. Harry would have none of it. This was going just too far.

“Not sufficient?” He not only stood up, he sprang up. “Threats from Voldemort were enough to make you all condemn Muggles and Muggleborns to death and he was not even living in your houses. Who are you to judge that threatening a minor with his parents' lives is not enough pressure? Who are you to judge anyone?”

Their was in uproar in the visitors' section. The judge called them to order. They quieted done after he banged his hammer three times. He immediately turned to Harry afterwards: “Mister Potter, these are serious accusations. Please fill a form of accusal with the Aurors, so that we may pursuit the matter. Now, coming back to the recent trial, we judge-”

“And how are you allowed to judge when your right to do so is in question?” He would not budge. Not on this one. This had been going on long enough. “Under Voldemort's orders, you have prosecuted Muggles and Muggleborns and given them over to the Death Eaters for killing. You have judged twenty-two Death Eaters and found all of them guilty and decreed them all to get the Kiss. You have not granted them the right to legal protection and not granted them the right to successfully defend themselves. I have not spoken up to now even though you ignored contrary evidence and court legislation in more than one case. But I do so now. Give me a form if you want to but under the line, all of you have to be tried before you can judge anyone. So I demand that you stop all executions now and reevaluate all cases as soon as all Wizengamot members have been tried of their war crimes.”

 

Malfoy gaped openly.

A camera went off and at least the three reporters were soaking up what he said and scratching it into stories with their quills. Other people were murmuring to each other, some even openly discussing what he said. He did not listen. He did not turn around to see if they were nodding along or glaring at him for interrupting.

“Mister Potter” The judge did not look at him but at the people behind. Harry got the feeling that maybe he was not standing there as alone as he thought. “Do you have any evidence for your claims? Can you prove that we have ignored evidence before or made decisions not in accord with the law?”

“How when you not only judge but also make the law? If your judgment does not fit the law, you can change to law. You changed it for Voldemort, so that you could judge on heritage. You did so in full knowledge of what your decisions would lead to – people being transported and killed. And now you changed the law, so that wearing a Dark Mark is a crime punished by death, even if nothing else was done. How can that be fair judgment?”

Some Wizengamot members looked quite uncomfortable. He knew the signs. He had seen them before. People shifting in their seats, looking around, searching for a way out without finding one. People trying not to meet his eyes while others tried to stare him down.

“Mister Potter, I ask again. Do you have any prove of your claims? Any evidence?”

“Of you condemning Muggles and Muggleborns? Sure I do. Fetch a pensieve, I can show it to you right here and now. And of you ignoring evidence that no wrong was done? Of course I have. We can certainly retrial Narzissa Malfoy right here and now. You have no evidence of her doing anything wrong whatsoever.”

“Narzissa Malfoy housed He-who-must-not-be-named and his followers at her house for over two years. We have evidence that people were tortured in that house. She was at the final battle on the enemies' side. What evidence have we dismissed?” The judge sounded angered. His voice had a slight tremor and instead of drowning on, he seemed to really focus for once.

“Voldemort and the Death Eaters were living at her house but you have not asked her if she had them there willingly. For all we know she was a prisoner to be used for blackmail against her husband and son. We have evidence that people were tortured in her house but we have no evidence whatsoever that she had anything to do with it. For all we know she could have been one of the ones tortured, again for blackmail. And we have evidence that she was at the final battle. We also have evidence that she had no wand during the battle. We actually have evidence that she had no wand for six months leading up to the battle. Draco Malfoy had her wand seeing as I had his. Which you all know because you read my testimony very carefully to use it against every Death Eater you have tried. Looking more closely at that testimony, you might remember that the only significant thing she did in the final battle was lying to Voldemort to help me” Harry drew in some air. “Looking at the facts, you have more evidence to give her an Order of Merlin than to judge her. And you certainly have no evidence which is enough to have her given the Kiss.”

“You have convicted my mother? Why was I not informed? Why could I not act as a witness on her behalf?” Malfoy was snarling. He was nearly jumping out of the seat with only the chains holding him back. “Was my father at her trial?”

“No, they wisely had him killed beforehand, so that he was unable to. Even though they knew his wife and son were to be tried some days later” Harry was troubled by the coldness of his own voice. But it was true. It had been nagging at his mind for quite some time now. These trials were inherently wrong.

“Lucius Malfoy was a convicted Death Eater, guilty of many crimes against humanity-” The judge seemed to have found his drowning voice again.

“And still his trial was a farce!” Harry screamed. Enough of this shit already! “Even his trial! You want to talk that one over as well? Fine, let's do so” One reporter was walking in the courtroom yard to snap a photo of Malfoy and him from the front. “Lucius Malfoy was and is a convicted Death Eater. He willingly entered Voldemort's service. He tortured, he used Dark artifacts and he killed. I have more than enough evidence on all of that. I have seen all of that with my own eyes. I have not only seen, I have lived through it. He used those artifacts on me and he used Cruciatus on me. He killed a person right in front of me. You had all that evidence when you convicted him two years ago. And you judged that he shall be put into Askaban. We are all in accord there, right?

He was met with stony silence. Even the reporters seemed to eagerly anticipate what he would say, not flashing their cameras for once.

“He was broken out of Askaban. Not his own doing. As soon as he arrived at Malfoy Manor, he was stripped of his reacquired wand. We have undeniable evidence of that. Voldemort himself came after me with Malfoy's wand and I destroyed that wand. Lucius Malfoy could not get another wand after that because Olivander was abducted. He was placed in Malfoy Manor – true – but he made no wands there. So we can safely assume that Lucius Malfoy was without a wand in his whole year out of Askaban” Harry breathed deeply. He wished he had some water to make breaks in his speech. “So he did exactly no crime between your last conviction and your latest one. Still, with exactly the same evidence, you have not placed him back in Askaban but had him given the Kiss. So I ask: Why?”

 

“I demand an internal debate. I also demand that all trials and Kiss-givings are stopped until we have discussed Mister Potter's accusations” An older women of the Wizengamot demanded.

Harry vaguely remembered her. Katie's mother if he was not mistaken. Certainly someone very anti-Malfoy seeing how her daughter had suffered. Still she seemed to be a person in her right mind. “Auror, hurry and stop all Kiss-givings until further notice.”

The Auror which had presented the evidence and had been standing on the side-lines ever since nodded and left the room with a fast pace. Harry hoped he could at least save Misses Malfoy. He was not sure how fast after a trial such an execution happened.

“Auror apprentice Potter” He snapped into Auror mode, being suddenly commanded like that. Training had not even begun but their trial days had already drilled him into obeying when someone used that voice. In this case, it was Misses Bell still. “Have Mister Malfoy brought into a holding cell until further notice.”

“Yes, Ma'am” He replied automatically.

At their trial days they were shown the courtrooms, the department and the holding cells. They were taught in some basic spells they would use in the future – for example cuffing and uncuffing prisoners and opening holding cell doors. He was actually able to follow her order, even though he knew next to nothing about actually being an Auror. Should he take Malfoy himself or call an Auror?

On the other hand, what would happen if he left Malfoy alone? Those vultures would attack not only him but Harry himself as well. Taking Malfoy out was kind of a protection against reporters' questions. Yes, he would take Malfoy out himself.

He sifted through his memory for the right spell and released the chains on the chair. He then used the one to cuff Malfoy. He grabbed his upper arm and said: “Come on, Malfoy. Let's go.”

The ferret didn't move an inch.

Harry let out a sigh. Great. Wonderful moment to be a drama queen. He placed himself right next to the chair, grabbed both of Malfoy's arms and heaved him up. At least this time he got some help. Malfoy followed his lead but seemed deep in thought and unresponsive.

“Well, thank you, Harry, for saving my ass – again” Harry mumbled to himself and led the other up the stairs of the courtroom. Of course he was assaulted by reporters. He ignored them completely. He had become good at that right after the war.

They were in the lift when Malfoy spoke for the first time: “My father is dead?”

“You didn't know?” Harry swallowed. Oh shit. He was no good at these things. “Well … yes, he is.”

“When?”

“Uhm … right … let's see” He searched his brain for the date. “He was convicted last Thursday, so … I guess he was kissed on Friday.”

The lift stopped and he dragged Malfoy out of it. The other followed him with a bit more spirit this time. He even looked up. There was no sadness. Just hard lines again. A mix of self-control and hate. But he looked ahead, not at Harry.

“They did not tell you?” He asked again.

“No” Malfoy's voice spoke of controlled fury. “They did not.”

“Well … sorry” Harry cleared his throat. “About your father.”

“Don't bother” Malfoy slighted him with a look. “You hated his guts.”

“Yes” They reached the holding cells. “Yes, I did. I am still sorry. They should at least have told you” He opened the door, stepped inside with Malfoy and uncuffed him. He left the room and was glad that Malfoy had not made any problems for him.

“Potter?”

He turned and looked back without closing the door.

“Become a better Auror.”

Harry swallowed. After a moment he just nodded and closed the door. He sealed the holding cell's door with a spell and went to find an Auror to tell them what had happened at the trial.


End file.
